A man who claims he killed Jaquise Lewis in the March 22 Los Altos Skate Park shooting spoke anonymously to KOB-TV last week. The TV news segment featured the man’s silhouette and didn’t release his identity “because he has not been charged with a crime, and police have not finished their investigation.” The report described him as a 22-year-old father. In the report, the man said he carries a gun with him everywhere he goes. He used it that night, according to what he told KOB, when he saw an argument over a skateboard escalate into gunfire. The man said he saw 17-year-old Lewis shoot two people.

The U.S. Department of Justice has agreed to take a look into the Albuquerque Police Department’s participation with the Department of Energy at at a federal facility. This comes months after Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham, D-N.M., voiced concern about the police department’s use of the DOE’s National Training Center, which is located at Kirtland Air Force Base. There, Albuquerque police took part in training and in some cases instructed courses using controversial methods. Grisham released a statement today about the matter, saying that she raised concerns in February to DOE Secretary Ernest Moniz about whether Albuquerque police “should have access to the facilities and classes used to train special DOE police forces to protect the nations nuclear stockpile.” She mentioned that for a year, Albuquerque police “has been under a consent decree with the DOJ” following the federal agency’s report that the department had in several cases violated law by using excessive force.

ByMargaret Wright | January 26, 2015

Margaret Wright is an Albuquerque-based journalist who is a former managing editor of the Alibi and co-founder of the New Mexico Compass. Margaret has also worked as a teacher, social worker and waitress and is currently a reporter with the New Mexico Political Report. On Friday evening, Gilbert Montaño, the City of Albuquerque’s deputy chief administrative officer, was on the phone to make amends. “Moving forward, I’d be happy to sit down and chat,” he told me. “We’re not isolators when it comes to media.

On Monday, a small group of demonstrators gathered out side the District Attorney’s office in Albuquerque. The group held up signs denouncing the Albuquerque Police Department for recent a string of fatal shootings by police. Tina Kachele of Albuquerque was one of the demonstrators and said she was there to show solidarity with the victims of the recent shootings.

ByPat Davis | January 12, 2015

[button icon=”tags”]Analysis & Opinion[/button]
“The process of healing also needs to include the pursuit of truth, not for the sake of opening old wounds, but rather as a necessary means of promoting justice, healing and unity,” Pope Francis, speaking on Jan. 12, 2015 in Sri Lanka
Bernalillo County District Attorney Kari Brandenburg has charged two Albuquerque police officers with murder for the shooting of a homeless camper in the city’s foothills in March of 2014. Read the Criminal Charging Documents Here:
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Before officer-involved shootings in Ferguson or New York sparked local and national protests, Albuquerque residents were struggling with a string of officer-involved shootings in their own city. James Boyd was the 26th person shot by Albuquerque police since 2010. There have been 15 others since.

OPINION & ANALYSIS

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At the start of the last Congress, one of the first votes House Republicans took was on a bill designed to unravel protections for workers exposed to chemicals like beryllium. Beryllium is one of the chemicals that poisoned my father’s lungs and caused his cancer. Watching House Republicans vote against the health and safety needs […]